


Tether

by roselightsaber



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cultural Differences, Declarations Of Love, Ears, M/M, Non-Consensual Haircuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 04:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10586511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselightsaber/pseuds/roselightsaber
Summary: Cutting Baze's hair is more of a punishment than his elders know.





	

“Baze?”

“You shouldn’t be here now.” His voice still sounds small despite how deep it’s grown these last few years, despite the echo of the small prayer room. “We’re not to see each other.”

“Lucky thing is,” Chirrut says obstinately, flopping gracelessly down next to Baze, sprawled while the other kneels stiffly. Chirrut can tell by the odd resonance of his voice that his head is to the ground, penitent. Or sulking. “I can’t see anything, and as much as I’ve tried, you’re no exception.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Baze growls, sitting up to face the altar. He rubs a hand self-consciously over his newly shaved head. It feels _wrong_  in a way he did not expect to still experience so strongly all these years after leaving his home. “If someone sees you in here with me, they’ll think the worst. Then we’ll _really_  get it.”

“They already have me scrubbing floors until I’m old and frail,” He grumbles, already fidgeting with his robes, with the seam of stone flagstones beneath his feet. “How much worse can it get?”

Baze turns toward him sharply, a wave of resentment rippling from him strongly enough to give Chirrut pause in his complaining. “They give you _chores_ , and they mark me like this?” The furious boom of his voice breaks before he can get the words out, cracking under the weight of humiliation.

“Mark you?” Chirrut’s hands instantly drift toward Baze. Their elders could be strict, overly stoic – certainly unwelcoming of public displays of affection, if the past two days were any indication – but punishment was usually mild. If one of them had hurt Baze somehow– He snaps out of the thought suddenly as Baze swats his hand away dismissively. “What’s gotten into you? Are you seriously going to avoid me just because we got caught?”

“No one,” He whispers, voice hoarse, heavy with shame. “No one should have seen that.” It had been so easy to give in – _alarmingly_  easy, so much that Baze had begun to wonder if he hadn’t gotten exactly what he deserved for his weakness. He’d been on duty in the archives when Chirrut came in to study, and he should have known then not to trust himself alone with the other in the quiet solitude between stacks. “It was irresponsible to even…” He sniffles in spite of himself, unable to completely conceal his embarrassed sadness behind anger.

“We only kissed, Baze,” Chirrut whispers gently, taken aback by just how humiliated the other seems to be. Baze is shy, sure, but this is not the first time they’ve been scolded this way, and even when they do get caught in the occasional embarrassing situation, they can usually laugh it off after the fact. “What did they say to you?”

Baze rubs his head again, and this time Chirrut can _hear_ it. Or rather – he can’t hear it, the familiar rustle of his hair, of long, carefully wrapped braids swishing pleasantly. It sounds like his own instead, short and bristly. “Oh…” He balls his hand into a fist to resist reaching toward him again. “Did they finally make you cut it?” A sob shakes him suddenly, taking them both by surprise. Chirrut tries to put on a cheeky smile for Baze’s sake, forces a little laugh. “I bet you still look handsome. They’ve been letting you bend that rule for a long time, it’s no wonder they–”

“You can’t possibly think I care how I look,” Baze snaps, squeezing his eyes shut. “Do you think I’m so vain?”

Chirrut scowls. He wants to be sympathetic, truly, but his patience has never been limitless, even with Baze. “You won’t tell me anything! What am I supposed to think, then?” He leans over and obstinately rubs his head with both hands, as roughly and as surly as he dares without really knowing what might be going through Baze’s mind.

It earns him an indignant yelp and a punch in the shoulder, a mild enough outcome. “Don’t touch me,” He complains, though it’s too late. “You shouldn’t see me like this.”

Ever the contrarian, Chirrut leans against his shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong or I’ll pull out your arm hair next.”

Baze can’t help but laugh, even as he rubs his eyes against embarrassed tears. “They let me keep it for so long, you know? It was the last thing I had to connect me to them.”

“Oh…” Chirrut takes this in with eyes closed, focused and considering. “To your family?” He ventures, breathing a noticeable sigh of relief as Baze leans close in response.

“My family, my…past.” He looks down to where Chirrut’s hands have found his own, nimble fingers locating the strips of hide that had bound his braids now wrapped around his wrist. “I was young when I lost them. I don’t remember much.”

“You never told me it meant something. Not like that,” Chirrut murmurs thoughtfully. He reaches to untie the leather band but pauses as if he’s only just realized he might be adding insult to injury. “Is it all right to take it off?” He asks, and Baze feels an unfamiliar swell of pride in his chest at the gesture. Just as quickly, though, it’s crushed by the reminded that he’s wasted time he could have shared the little he knows of his heritage with Chirrut.

“You can take it,” He murmurs. “I don’t like when anyone else touches it, though. I don’t really remember my family but I know it belonged to them – or it was made like theirs, at least.”

Chirrut pulls his lower lip into his mouth the way he does when deep in thought, his touch impossibly gentle as he works at the knot. “They shouldn’t have even touched your hair,” He grumbles. “And they just chopped it off without a thought.”

“I don’t think they knew,” He says, not quite with forgiveness, but a sort of tired resignation. “I asked them to leave the braids. The rest doesn’t matter so much. But they just…”

“I wish you’d told me before,” Chirrut murmurs sheepishly. “I would have been more…respectful.”

Baze laughs faintly, watching as Chirrut unwraps the strips of material from his wrist. A rare blush tinges Chirrut’s cheeks, but Baze can’t bring himself to tease him for it now. He knows what he’s thinking of – plenty of instances of getting grabbed by those braids, sometimes in the heat of sparring, more often to be tugged into kisses or more. “I would have told you if you did something I didn’t like.”

“You didn’t even want anyone to touch your braids,” He says thoughtfully, reverently even, as he wraps the leather strip around his own fingers and slowly pulls it off again, savoring the familiar sensation. “You let me redo them all the time.”

Baze hums thoughtfully. “I did.”

“You didn’t want to tell me it meant a lot?”

“No.” Baze glances over at him with the barest hint of a smile. “I didn’t.”

“Want to tell me now?” He takes one of Baze’s hands, rests it on his knee, and takes up a familiar criss-cross wrapping pattern with the hide cords, around Baze’s pointer finger instead of his hair.

“Normally you grow them out your whole life,” He says, trying to force lightness into the words that he does not truly feel. “So you hold a bit of your past, your whole existence, close to your mind. The good and the bad things, bound up together in your memory.”

“And they just took it away.” Chirrut fondles his handiwork with one finger before untying the whole thing again and starting over on his middle finger.

“Even if you didn’t know, you seemed to treat braiding my hair like an important job,” He observes, watching Chirrut twist the cords around his finger. “You have a sense for these things.”

Chirrut shrugs. “Or I am just always reverent when I touch you.”

“I’ll miss you running your fingers through it.” He smiles a little, turning his hand to twine their fingers together.

Chirrut squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry, Baze,” He murmurs again, lifting Baze’s hand to kiss across his knuckles. “I didn’t mean to get us into trouble. If I’d known they’d do something like this, I would have–”

Baze quiets him with a kiss, an uncharacteristically forward move. “Don’t,” He whispers against his lips. “Please. I don’t want to feel ashamed for this. I worry enough for both of us.” He touches his forehead to Chirrut’s. “Be stubborn for me.”

Chirrut’s look of surprise is almost worth the entire ordeal. “I will, love,” He promises, lifting a hand to his cheek. “Can I…feel?”

Baze hesitates, tilting his head slightly into Chirrut’s hand. “Yeah,” He finally says, sighing faintly. “Don’t make fun.”

Chirrut shifts to kneel in front of him, hands at either side of his face. There’s just a little stubble, as usual; Chirrut wishes the elders would let him grow it for a while just to let him enjoy the change of texture. He brushes the pads of his thumbs gently across his lips, the way he always does when he _sees_  him this way, and Baze responds as he always does, pressing a kiss to the digits. Baze remembers the first time Chirrut asked to touch him this way, how the intimacy of it had stolen his breath, how he’d kissed his thumbs before thinking about it, Chirrut’s sweet surprised laugh.

Chirrut sweeps his fingers upward, feeling along his soft jawline, round cheeks where a hint of baby fat still lingers, tracing around his nostrils until Baze scrunches up his nose with a laugh. “You know that part already,” He objects, though it’s no objection at all.

“But I love it,” He responds, leaning to kiss the bridge of his nose. Nonetheless he relents, instead slipping his hands up to where his fingertips _should_  slip into long hair. Instead it’s all soft bristles, and though he still regrets the loss of Baze’s hair on his behalf, he’s instantly delighted at the tactile sensation, rubbing at Baze’s scalp soothingly. Just as quickly, though, he is distracted again, this time by Baze’s ears, temptingly exposed now that the other can’t hide them behind his locks. “Oh,” He coos, only slightly teasingly. “I’m a little sad I have to share these with the rest of the world.”

Baze grunts a complaint, but makes no move to evade the curious touch. “Only you get to touch,” He snorts. “Same as always.”

“Lucky me,” He chuckles, close enough to tickle the shell of his ear. “Very lucky.” He nuzzles behind his ear, taking in the new feeling. The other ear gets the same treatment, and Baze just laughs and rests his hands at Chirrut’s waist. If this supposed lesson has taught him anything, it’s that there is nothing so precious that he wouldn’t give it up to keep Chirrut close, and that no punishment can wound him as long as he is near. He’s only hours out from being disciplined for being caught with him, and rather than sulking off to atone as planned he’s somehow knelt before Chirrut, only halfway resisting the slow-spreading warmth of arousal flowing through him as Chirrut sucks and nibbles his way up his ear.

“You like them that much?”

Chirrut giggles, tracing up the shell of his ear with the tip of his tongue. “I always have.”

Baze hums, low and resonant, as Chirrut scratches pleasantly at his scalp. “It will grow back,” He sighs, half to himself. “You’ll just have to stay with me until then.”

“Of course, love.” Chirrut lifts Baze’s hand, feeling for the hide strip still wound around his finger. “You still carry your memories and your family with you. No one can take it from you.” He pulls Baze’s arm, his hand in both of Chirrut’s, holding his palm nearly to the floor. “And we’ll make more memories from here.” He bows low, back to the altar, and kisses the cord on Baze’s finger as reverently as any prayer. There is no undoing the desecration, but Chirrut will try his best to soothe the wound left behind nonetheless.

He knows he’s doing the right thing when Baze takes a shaky breath but does not try to stop him, or bring him back upright before he’s ready. “Thank you,” He murmurs when Chirrut rises again. “Truly, my dear.” He pauses a moment before shaking his hand loose from Chirrut’s and undoing the careful knot work around his finger.

“Is it too tight?”

Baze smiles and puts a finger to his lips before unwinding just one of the double strands. “Give me your hand?” Chirrut tilts his head at the peculiar inflection, but lifts his hand to Baze, who immediately starts winding the other strand around his finger. “You are my most important memory,” He murmurs, and though there’s a pang of loss for what has been cut away, he is certain the sense of belonging his braids symbolized has been solidified not in his past, but in the future he’s more and more sure of every day.

“My Baze.” Chirrut smiles, twining their fingers together, feeling both sets of knots with his other hand. “Let’s get some rest. Somewhere no one is going to object.”

“You mean you don’t want me to take you on the altar?” Baze teases, hauling himself to his feet with Chirrut in tow.

“I still very much do,” He chuckles, swinging their joined hands as they walk. “Let’s give it a few days before we go getting caught again.”


End file.
